We are so glad you asked. It is such a great question that we have devoted an entire page to answer it. You can find it here.

Much counseling purports to be Christian. However, most of the counseling that is done by Christians is a mixture of unbelieving counseling systems which have been “sanitized” to sound Christian. I am not saying that everyone who uses pagan counseling systems eclectically does so in bad faith, but it is perfectly clear that even among the best, the Bible is “brought in” after the theory and the practice have been adopted in order to somehow make what is done “Christian.” Worse still, in other cases, the Bible is interspersed to make it appear Christian. Even those who honestly think that sprinkling a few Bible verses throughout somehow sanctifies the counseling, in many cases must have an uneasy conscience about the procedure. In some situations, nevertheless, there may be those who simply know so little of the Bible, how to interpret and apply it, that they sincerely believe this process legitimizes the name “Christian Counseling.”

Truly Christian counseling (Nouthetic Counseling, or that which is in line with Nouthetic Counseling, but does not use the name) is Bible-based from start to finish. See the answer to the previous question for more details. What makes the difference, fundamentally, is whether or not a system is grounded on the promise that the Bible has all the answers for life and godliness. The Bible teaches this in such passages as 2 Peter 1:3 where the promises of God are said to provide just such help. And, in addition, in 2 Timothy 3:17, from three distinct perspectives, Paul says the Scriptures are sufficient for every task an elder is called to do. What makes the difference between those systems that call themselves Christian and truly are, then, is whether it includes extraneous materials as well. Christian counseling, to warrant the name, must assert (and in actual practice demonstrate) the sufficiency of the Scriptures for counseling.

There are many who will say that their counseling is Christian and biblical, but the test comes in evaluating what they actually do when counseling. The issue is whether or not they incorporate other beliefs and practices or not. Nouthetic Counseling is based entirely upon Scripture. Other systems, claiming to be, are not. When you get right down to examining what people do in counseling it is quite evident that their claims are false. That is how it differs from other counseling systems that claim to be Christian. It warrants the claim to the name “Christian” and to the name “Biblical.”

Some who purport to do “biblical” counseling only use the Bible to support what, upon examination, proves to be a non-Christian system. A good example of this is the temperament school, revived by O. Hallesby and others. They took this idea over form the Greek physician-philosophers who believed that the body was regulated by the proportions of four humors (or fluids that had to do with temperament) which one possessed. The modern “Christian” proponents of this system conveniently leave out the fluid basis for the system, still propagate the four temperament theory, and add biblical verses or stories about the personalities of various biblical characters whom they use to illustrate their viewpoint.

In doing this, the Bible becomes an illustration book from which the temperament people take materials to “back” their beliefs. Because they use much Bible-wrongly interpreted and used for purposes for which it was never intended-what they have to say may impress the unwary as being quite Christian. The fact is, however, there is nothing fundamentally Christian or biblical about the temperament theory at all. Indeed, to call it such is deception of the rawest sort. Christians need to become far more discerning, and not accept whatever claims to be Christian as such. Unless the system is biblical from start to finish, it isn’t Christian.

Jay E Adams

There is no way that I can look into individual hearts in order to answer your question, but from the scuttlebutt that I hear I will venture to say that the following, at least in part, may answer your question.

First, I have been outspokenly against the eclectic borrowing that has been the norm for Christians ever since the 40s. Since I began to write in the 60s, I have attacked this trend as unbiblical. To say that, of course, is to say that what its practitioners are doing displeases the Lord. As people awaken to what they drifted into unwittingly and become aware of their errors, they usually respond in one of two ways: they repent and change their ways or they get their dander up. “Don’t tell me I am doing something that displeases God. Why, my whole intention is to help people. That pleases Him, doesn’t it?” That’s how the latter may respond. When we say that God wants them to help others–but do it His way, not theirs, unless they change their minds at that point, they are likely to become even more infuriated. That sort of thing, I suspect, is happening all the time. People don’t like to be shown that they are wrong.

Another possibility is that a person has so much invested in what he is doing that to make a change would be revolutionary. The change is too great to contemplate. Schooling, learning the ins and outs of a system, affiliation with a group, writings, and you name it. How would you like to admit you are wrong and have to change all these things? Indeed, if a given person becomes a Nouthetic counselor, he would probably be dropped off the staff of some counseling center to which he belongs.

A third possibility is that becoming a Nouthetic counselor might mean jeers and disparagement by one’s associates. Others, in addition to themselves, have laughed at “those silly counselors who think that they can get all the information they need from the Bible alone!” Many people don’t like to be a part of an unpopular cause.

Some, affiliated with educational institutions want to be thought of as “scholarly.” The idea that Nouthetic counselors might be involved in anti-intellectual efforts because they write simply (see the article above) galls. They like academia better than the work of helping people.

In the paragraphs above I have sketched a few reasons why I think that some speak harshly about Nouthetic counseling. I have attributed no motives to any individual. If the shoe fits someone, he should wear it. If it’s the wrong size, let him ask, “What is my problem with Nouthetic counseling?” It would be interesting to know if he can articulate it.

Of course, Nouthetic counselors are not always popular as persons either. Some of them, like others in all of the various camps, turn people off. I can only say that over the forty-some years that I have watched the movement grow from a handful into the thousands, those I have known well, almost without exception, have been persons of deep loyalty to the Lord! And they have been easy to work with. That is one of the reasons that almost all of those who were a part of the original crowd are still eager participants in the movement today. One thing that I would like to urge is to get better acquainted with us. That might change quite a few minds!

Nouthetic counselors are far from perfect. Like other Christians, they are growing. But one thing they have going for them—the principal textbook they study is the Bible. That has the effect of nurturing their own lives as they study to help others. Wouldn’t that sort of study be great for you too? If you have doubts about what you are doing—or have been trained to do—it would be wise to make the effort to look more into the Nouthetic movement. In spite of the animosity of some, you may find there exactly what you have been looking for.

Jay E Adams

If you do a web search of the word nouthetic you will come up with all sorts of websites. Some are fine organizations, some are very strange and weird. While we are not organically connected with any of them we do have a working relationship with ACBC, the Association of Certified Biblical Counselors (formerly the National Association of Nouthetic Counselors). Jay Adams is one of the founding fathers of the organization. Each of our faculty members is a certified member of ACBC. We urge each of our graduates to go on and seek certification with ACBC.

There are many organizations with whom we maintain a happy friendship. There are others, however, from which we must purposefully distance ourselves.

BE WARNED! There are some unscrupulous people and “schools” out there on the web who purport to offer training in counseling. We would cite them by name here but the list would soon be outdated as these people come and go and change their names frequently, often using names that are very similar to those of very fine and reputable institutions. Some even offer “degrees” in counseling but are little more than unaccredited diploma mills. This is the only place you can study under Dr. Adams himself.

If you are interested in seeking an academic degree in Biblical Counseling, we urge you to consider Mid-America Baptist Theological Seminary. All courses are offered

Certainly, but be aware that for most questions about specific cases our answer will begin like this, “We are glad you called and we are thankful that you would have the confidence in us to ask for our advice but without being involved in the case ourselves or having the ability to ask questions of the counselee we simply cannot give counsel about a specific case. Now, if you have a question about some general principle which may or may not apply to your specific case we will do all we can to help.”

Perhaps. Go to the ACBC website to see if there is an ACBC member near you. Still, beware to do your due diligence. ACBC certification is not a guarantee you have found the right counselor for you.

Since we first posted our web site we have received a number of these kinds of e-mails. Proverbs 18:13 warns us that it is foolish to seek to answer a matter before hearing and understanding it. No one needs the counsel of a fool to complicate what is already a major problem. People’s lives are just too important for us to give quick, uninformed answers. To be able to help we would have to be able to sit down with a counselee, ask the questions we want to ask, hear and observe responses, and ask questions that arose out of those answers. Our response to these e-mails will always be to point you to your pastor. If he does not believe he can help then he is the kind of man we are seeking to reach with our training. We would be glad to help him.

Of course not. From the outset of the Nouthetic movement we have worked closely with physicians. We feature them in training programs, publish their books, and refer people to them regularly. That is a totally false charge that is often made against us. Now, we are careful to distinguish between true disease and that which does not have an organic etiology. We are concerned to see that medicine not be used to obtain pain relief while by-passing non-organic causes of some difficulty in living.

Roughly speaking, there are two types of medicine. One is supplementary to bodily output. For instance, if the body is not producing insulin as it should, we think it is proper to add insulin from the outside. Or, if one is suffering from atrial fibrillation we believe in taking a beta-blocker in order to achieve a normal, steady heartbeat. The use of medicine in such cases helps the body to function as it was supposed to function.

The use of psychotropic drugs, on the other hand, inhibits the body from functioning as it should. It is that use of medicine that we deplore. Mood-changing drugs affect a person in such a way that the benefits of pain and other unpleasant feelings are not realized. Discomfort was designed to call attention to some underlying problem (organic or non-organic) so that it might be dealt with. One would hardly want to desensitize the nerve endings on his fingers because he has found that touching a hot stove hurts. If he did, the first he would know of the fact that he was resting his fingers there would be when he smells meat cooking! To desensitize these nerves, in the long run, would cause serious damage to the body. As an alerting system and warning device, then, pain is a friend. We do not believe in masking such pain with drugs.

There are, of course, many organically-caused problems. Our counselors regularly refer counselees to physicians whenever they suspect that something organic may be behind their behavior. They do not want to miss a brain tumor, an aneurysm, or anything else that might require medical treatment. While Nouthetic counselors refuse to diagnose, since we are not trained to do medical work, whenever we suspect that something more than heart-motivated behavior is operating, we will send counselees to a physician for a medical checkup.

Jay E Adams

This false charge has been made by those who have a propensity to lump together all things that sound similar. Their problem—and it’s a serious one—is that they read and think carelessly. They have little power of discernment; they do not know how to make valid distinctions. “Adams speaks of ‘behavior,’ he talks about ‘reward and punishment.’ Ergo, he is teaching behaviorism.”

But long before Watson or Skinner ever drew a breath God was speaking of behavior, reward and punishment. Dare we call Him a Behaviorist? Hardly. God regularly traces outer behavior to the “heart.” By heart, He means the inner person. Outer action is but a result of the inner thinking, determining, etc. Nowhere is changing the outer person alone a solution to man’s problems. Rather, that is Pharisaism. Since sin is an “inside job,” salvation must be too. Inner regeneration is necessary to produce outer changes that please God. Works (outer behavior) must flow from faith (inner belief); neither is sufficient without the other.

Moreover, in behaviorism, the goal is to reward the desired behavior immediately in order to make it stick. In the Bible, true reward is delayed until eternity (Cf. Hebrews 11:13-16; 24-27). And, God-pleasing behavior is governed not by manipulation and “control,” but by inner desire to please God. Always keep in mind 1 Peter 1:14b-15, 18-19:

Don’t shape your lives by the desires that you used to follow in your ignorance. Instead, as the One Who called you is holy, you yourselves must become holy in all your behavior…knowing that you weren’t set free from the useless behavior patterns that were passed down from your forefathers, by the payment of a corruptible ransom like silver or gold, but with Christ’s valuable blood.

See the difference? The conclusion? “Be deeply concerned about how you behave during your residence as aliens” (1 Peter 1:17). Nouthetic counselors will continue to do so!

Jay E Adams

Quite frankly, none. Do you wonder at that? Let me tell you why you shouldn’t. To compare Christian counseling with other forms of counseling is to compare oranges to apples (no, let’s say, oranges and socks!). Consider the goal of Christian counseling over against that of others. Most counseling seeks to solve a person’s problem in order to bring relief. That is the prime goal. In Christian counseling, however, the goal is to honor and glorify God, whether or not relief is obtained. How, then, do you compare the outcomes?

Moreover, since the object of biblical counseling is to bring about change in the counselee that honors God, how would you test for that empirically? Would you put his soul in a test tube, shake it up, and hope it turns blue? How would you test whether God was honored, whether the motives of the counselee were sound (since God looks upon the heart; not merely on outward behavior) or whether he only made changes outwardly? How would you determine the extent of the Holy Spirit’s work in the counselee’s life so as to make the desired spiritual changes? In other words, there is no way to obtain empirical evidence. Since it is biblical attainments that are under consideration, it is impossible to get statistical evidence for the spiritual changes that the biblical counselor seeks to bring about.

Then, further, why would we need any tests anyway? The One Who tries the hearts of men is the Lord. He infallibly knows what is happening within the person. We can look only at his outward behavior and listen to his speech. It is He Who tests; and that is all that counts. Besides, from the counselor’s perspective, success is measured not by the outcome of the counseling sessions but ultimately by whether the counselor did those things that were biblical, thereby honoring his Lord. Success may be measured in many ways; Christians should measure it in terms of how well the counselor followed the Bible in a given case. And once again, there is no way to test this except by comparing what he does with what the Scriptures require of him.

So, what does the Christian counselor have to demonstrate the effectiveness of Nouthetic counseling? Nothing, as I said before. And he is absolutely content to say so. He must do as well as he can to meet biblical requirements in order to please God, and then let the chips fall where they may. He knows that his performance as a counselor will be flawed since he is not perfect. But he also knows that when he asks for forgiveness for failure God measures his success by that as well as by the performance. So, given the goals, given the persons at work (the counselor and the Holy Spirit), and given the kinds of outcomes that are expected and achieved in the sight of God, it would be not only foolish but arrogant to attempt to test Nouthetic counseling by some human apparatus. We do not have to set results of the sort that they might wish before the world, so long as we honor and please God. On Judgment Day, He will reveal the statistics! Any counseling claiming to be “Christian” that makes much of statistics thereby invalidates itself as such by showing that its goals and outcomes are not thought of in biblical terms.

Since the human counselor is not the only one who is at work in Christian counseling, the Christian has an “unfair advantage” over other counselors. With the Holy Spirit enlightening the minds of counselees and enabling them to overcome sinful propensities that hinder growth, producing His fruit through His inerrant Word, what profit would there be in trying to determine how well a human counselor counsels? In effect, he is but a catalyst, ministering the Scriptures in ways that the Spirit utilizes to bring about change in counselees. The Spirit is the ultimate Counselor. The whole concept of empirical evidence, statistics and the like, begs the question. And the thought of attempting to obtain them is repugnant. Sorry, but that is how it is.

Jay E Adams

Now that is an interesting charge. I want to forestall all misunderstanding on the subject. Yes, I speak a lot about sin. So does the Bible. Others locate man’s problem in genetics, in environmental factors, in training, and so on. They limit their understanding of man’s difficulties thereby, and truncate the solutions that they might reach. They are like the blind men trying to describe the elephant.

All problems stem from Adam’s sin. Had there been no fall, there would be no remedial counseling. But Adam did sin, and if you were to trace genetic problems, environmental factors, and poor training back far enough, you would discover that it is because of the fall that these problems exist. Sin, then, rather than being a limiting concept, is the broadest of all. It covers the waterfront!

But not all of an individual counselee’s problems may be traced to some specific sin in his life. It may be that he has been injured by others, misled, and so on. While he bears responsibility for how he handles wrongdoing toward himself, nevertheless, he is certainly not responsible for everything that occurs.

In Competent to Counsel, published 40 years ago, I stated clearly that the cases of Job and the man born blind (John 9) are explicit examples of the fact that people do not always bring their problems upon themselves. In the providence of God, who knows how many illnesses, and other untoward circumstances, may accrue from transactions that take place in the unseen world? We are not privy to such information. The only thing that is important for us to say about such matters is that God held Job (and his four counselors) responsible for interpreting and dealing with his condition so far as they were able to do so.

In cases where no causal relationship between one’s behavior and his circumstances is apparent, that usually calls for a similar tact to be taken by Nouthetic counselors. They help their counselees to understand (so far as possible) what is happening, to face it with biblical attitudes and actions, and to learn how to grow more like Christ from doing so. Often, an exposition and application of Romans 8:28-29 to the counselee’s situation is in order. We certainly would not postulate some hidden sin where there is no evidence of it. Rather, with Christ, we would declare, “Neither did this man nor his parents sin (John 9:1-2).” We would also take our stand with Job against the accusations of the first three counselors.

I hope from this explanation, the calumny that has been leveled against us will be dispelled once and for all. We do not accuse every person of sin when he comes for counseling. In addition to those who have not brought trouble upon themselves, there are those who are neither in trouble nor are seeking to overcome sin in their lives. I speak of those who simply desire counsel about whom to marry, what school to attend, how to deal with life issues biblically, and the like. So, it is just not true that we go searching for sin in every counselee’s life. Nor is it fair or accurate to charge us with doing so.

Jay E Adams

No, they do not. They are not interested in theories—of any kind. When it comes to human personality they are content to adhere to the biblical teaching about man. That is, of course, quite extensive, and it is accurate. There is no need for a theory when God has provided facts. That no systematic presentation of all the biblical material has been published by anyone in the Nouthetic camp is true. But generally speaking, Scripture, summed up in those sections of standard systematic theology texts that have been around for some time, provides those things that a counselor needs to know to counsel others. I refer to Hodge, Berkhof, Reymond, and the like.

Here is a great difference between biblical counselors and those who care little about theology. The church has a long, solid tradition of exegetical work setting forth the facts about man in the states of holiness, sin, and redemption. The world knows nothing about these. Indeed, theories of counseling that are not based on the Bible fail to acknowledge man’s sinful propensities by nature, his need for regeneration to know and please God, and his failure to have a clear purpose for or meaning of life apart from Jesus Christ. Salvation, in terms of the Christian hope, and the ability to change in the ways that please God, not being an element of non-biblical systems, is a foreign concept. Since it plays no part in such systems of counseling, they cannot be correct, their theories of human personality must be flawed and there is no reason whatsoever for believers to waste their time devoting themselves to the study of them.

Insights concerning human biology and other organic and truly hereditary aspects of human beings may be useful to Christian counselors in any number of ways, but a theory of personality—forget it!

Jay E Adams